hilary janks

Wits University, Language and literacy education, Emerita

Wits University, Education, Emerita

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https://hilaryjanks.co.za
Address: Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

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University of Waikato

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Terry Locke

University of Waikato

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University of the West of England

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University of Cape Town

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Papers by hilary janks

Editorial: English language arts: past and future

English Teaching-practice and Critique, 2015

Notice: Changes introduced as a result of publishing processes such as copy-editing and formattin... more

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Critical approaches to teaching language, reading and writing

Routledge eBooks, Feb 17, 2015

Redesign—from critical awareness to social action Hilary Janks

Compelling and highly engaging, this text shows teachers at all levels how to do critical literac... more Compelling and highly engaging, this text shows teachers at all levels how to do critical literacy in the classroom and provides models for practice that can be adapted to any context. Integrating social theory and classroom practice, it brings critical literacy to life as a socio-cultural orientation to the teaching of literacy that takes seriously the relationship between language and power and orients readers to the social effects of texts. Students and teachers are drawn into the key questions critical readers need to pose of texts: Whose interests are served, who benefits, who is disadvantaged; who is included and who is excluded? The practical activities help readers grasp complex issues.

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Reconciliation pedagogy, identity and community funds of knowledge

Routledge eBooks, Feb 17, 2015

Janks, H. (2014) Globalisation, diversity, and education: A South African perspective. The Educational Forum, 78(1), 8-25

Critical Literacy and the Importance of Reading With and Against a Text

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Feb 22, 2019

I have long argued that critical literacy includes reading both with and against texts and that w... more I have long argued that critical literacy includes reading both with and against texts and that we, as readers and educators, need to do both and to understand why both matter. An Example of Reading With and Against a Text What follows is an example of my own attempt to read against a text that I fundamentally agree with. In May 2016, I was about to leave South Africa to teach in the

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Deconstruction and reconstruction: Diversity as a productive resource

Discourse, Mar 1, 2005

This article uses critical discourse analysis to show that a series of advertisements by the Unit... more This article uses critical discourse analysis to show that a series of advertisements by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are premised on a discourse of sameness that constructs difference negatively. The article moves from deconstructing these advertisements to possibilities for reconstruction that show difference as a positive and productive resource.

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The Entangled Becoming of a Researcher

BRILL eBooks, Jul 25, 2023

Literacies, language & schooling: teaching and learning the language arts

Elsevier eBooks, 2023

The Future of Critical Literacy

Literacy and Power, 2009

Critical Literacies in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Literacy with Mobiles in Print-Poor Communities

Reading Texts Critically

Language and Power in the Classroom

Language Policy and Political Issues in Education, 2016

(Un) reliable assessment : a case study

The drive towards quality assurance at South African universities, with 'consistency' of approach... more The drive towards quality assurance at South African universities, with 'consistency' of approach being one of its key features, has profound implications for assessment policies and practices in relation to equity. In this article we present a case study discussion of an investigation we undertook, as a department, into certain anomalies which arose in the assessment of a particular group of postgraduate students' research reports. We were puzzled by the variability in the marks awarded by three different markers of the same reports and set out to investigate what factors were producing this 'inter-marker [un]reliability'. Through a content and discourse analysis of the different assessors' written reports, we uncovered the implicit assessment categories and criteria which assessors were working with in their assessments. We discovered shared categories and criteria, as well as differences in how these were weighted. In the interests of equity and increased inter-marker reliability, we have developed a set of banded criteria on generic features of the research report which we intend to trial. We also surfaced two unresolved issues: the use of language and the role of the writer's 'voice' in the research report. As a result of this investigation, we argue that the 'consistency' of assessment within and across universities aspired to by quality assurers (such as the HEQC in the South African context) is difficult to achieve and much still depends on professional judgement, intellectual position and personal taste.

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Xenophobia and Constructions of the Other

Educating for Language and Literacy Diversity

Makwerekwere is the hostile term commonly used to construct foreign Africans living in South Afri... more Makwerekwere is the hostile term commonly used to construct foreign Africans living in South Africa as Other. It carries with it the undercurrent of emotions — such as loathing, outrage, fear and rejection — that result in ongoing and repeated xenophobic attacks, the worst and most widespread of which occurred in 2008. The term is an onomatopoeic representation of the ‘unintelligible’ sounds of the languages spoken by foreign Africans, highlighting language as a significant marker of identity. In an analysis of the ‘ideology of makwerekwere’, Matsinhe (2011: 298) confronts the question: ‘How did it come to pass that in the imagination of an African nation [South Africa], Africa and Africans represent the negativity of Otherness?’

Critical Discourse Analysis as a Research Tool

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 1997

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) stems from a critical theory of language which sees the use of ... more Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) stems from a critical theory of language which sees the use of language as a form of social practice. All social practice are tied to specific historical contexts and are the means by which existing social relations are reproduced or contested and different interests are served. It is the questions pertaining to interests-How is the text positioned or positioning? Whose interests are served by this positioning? Whose interests are negated? What are the consequences of this positioning?-that relate discourse to relations of power. Where analysis seeks to understand how discourse is implicated in relations of power, it is called critical discourse analysis. Fairclough's (1989, 1995) model for CDA consists three interrelated processes of analysis tied to three interrelated dimensions of discourse. These three dimensions are 1 The object of analysis (including verbal, visual or verbal and visual texts). 2 The processes by means of which the object is produced and received (writing/ speaking/designing and reading/listening/viewing) by human subjects. 3 The socio-historical conditions which govern these processes. According to Fairclough each of these dimensions requires a different kind of analysis 1 text analysis (description), 2 processing analysis (interpretation),

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